


Coincidence or Fate

by mggislife2789



Category: Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry ;)





	

Why had he run out of toilet paper at 12 o’clock at night?

After asking a next door neighbor to use their bathroom, Spencer drove down the street to the local supermarket, passing so many convenience stores along the way - for some reason he couldn’t explain he wanted to go to the supermarket. Thankfully however, the supermarket was a 24/7 store, so he walked in and straight towards the necessary aisle, picking up a mega pack of toilet paper and heading back towards the cashier.

There was next to no one else in the store, which was good for him because he was in a mini-coma and barely paying attention to anything except the task at hand.

Toilet paper. Then sleep.

As he approached the cash register, he saw the only other customer in the store. A young woman with drawn skin, tired eyes and what seemed to be the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her only purchase was a bottle of acetaminophen. Why would she be out at this time of night for something as simple as that?

After pulling out her wallet to pay for the bottle of pills, Spencer heard a slight clinking sound in her bag. That’s when it clicked. Her bag was full of alcohol...and she was here to buy the other necessary item to overdose effectively. He couldn’t be 100 percent sure, but every fiber in his body was telling him that this woman was about to go home, or somewhere else, and attempt to commit suicide. He watched her walk toward the door and round the corner to exit the store before dropping the toilet paper with the cashier and chasing after her. He didn’t know what to do or how to do it, but he couldn’t put his head on the pillow when he got home if he didn’t try to help this woman.

“Miss,” he called out. “Miss!” he said louder when he couldn’t get her attention.

With that she turned around and faced him, her eyes expressionless. “Yes?” she said with no affect.

“You don’t have to do what you’re intending to do,” he blurted out desperately.

That awakened something in her and a thin sheen of tears began to form. “What are you talking about?” she asked, her lip starting to quiver.  
“I heard the bottles in your bag. That, put together with the fact that you’re here buying acetaminophen at midnight leads me to believe that you’re going to attempt to commit suicide. It doesn’t have to be this way. There are people who can help you,” he started rambling.

“I have no one,” she said in a monotone voice. “My mother is dead, my father left us when I was three years old, my fiancee left me for another woman and I just lost my job. I have no one to turn to. My life has been a shitshow for the entirety of my 26 years and I’m so tired. I’m just done,” she continued matter of factly. “I appreciate your concern...more than you know, really, but there’s nothing you can do to help me.”

She started to turn away, toward her car and in Spencer’s mind, towards certain death. His body lunged forward of its own accord and grabbed the young woman by the wrist. “Please,” he pleaded, pulling away immediately after noticing that he had grabbed at her, “Will you appease me? You and I can drive around maybe? We can talk? I don’t want you to do this.” He hadn’t realized how desperate he sounded - he felt for her.

She looked taken aback. “Why do you care?” she asked sincerely.

“Because I’ve been you,” he admitted. “Except I didn’t turn to suicide, I turned to drugs. Dilauded.”

“What made you turn to drugs?” she asked, which he felt was a step in the right direction. At least she wasn’t going anywhere. “Girlfriend cheat on you? Parents die?”

“I was captured by a serial killer and tortured for two days,” he said. He’d never admitted that to anyone he didn’t know. He didn’t even know her name.

Apparently, that answer was not what she was expecting. “Shit,” she exclaimed.

“Will you talk with me? Please?”

“We can go for a drive. I drive though,” she agreed, “and I’m not making any promises.”

“I’ll take that for now,” he said, as they both made their way to her car. He allowed for her to take the lead, probing into his two days of terror with Tobias Henckel.

“So how did you get captured by a serial killer?” she asked, genuinely interested. “How does someone get into that kind of a situation?”

“I’m a profiler with the FBI,” he started, “I was on a case and made the mistake of separating from my partner. A man named Tobias Henckel captured me and held me captive for two days.”

“Jesus,” she breathed. “How did you live through it?”

“He had dissociative identity disorder. The actual man, Tobias, saved my life. He gave me mouth-to-mouth, after one of his alters nearly killed me. I was able to get a message to my team and they found just as the alter was about to bury me alive. Needless to say, I had some issues after that,” he said, twinging at the reminder of his horrific ordeal.

“Holy fuck,” she exclaimed. “I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I’m surprised you didn’t want to off yourself after something like that.”

A silence hung in the air for a few minutes before Spencer allowed himself to ask her about herself. “What’s your name?”

She turned the corner down another empty street. “Y/N,” she said quietly.

“What happened to bring you to this place?” he asked, genuinely wondering what had driven her to want to take her own life.

Very quickly, she rambled off everything that was wrong on her life - apparently grateful for the sympathetic ear. “I wasn’t lying when I said what I said before. My mother died last year of ovarian cancer. She was my best friend. I barely know my father - only a picture and a name,” she said. “During my third year in college, I met a seemingly nice guy, we dated for two years and a year after graduating, he asked me to marry him. I said yes. We were dating for four years, when I found out that for two of those he was also seeing someone else - and gotten that someone else pregnant. Then yesterday I found out that my department at my pharmaceutical company is getting cut, so I’m unemployed. My mother was my only friend, and she’s gone, so I have no one - and nothing. I’m just so tired,” she said, starting to cry.

His voice caught in his throat as she spoke. She’d gone through so much in such a short amount of time. “I understand,” he choked. Hesitatingly, he continued. “But you aren’t alone. There are tons of people out there who can relate to how your feeling...and can help you through it.”

“It’s too hard...I can’t do it...” she sobbed, pulling the car into a parking lot.

He turned toward her. “You can. There are professionals who can help. You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t think I can do it on my own. I live alone. I have no friends, no parents, no fiancee to help me in my daily life - it’s just me,” she weeped.

“You don’t have to do it on your own,” he said, wanting so badly to help her. “I’ll give you my phone number and you can call or text me whenever you need.”

Her crying started to subside as she wiped away her tears with the cuff of her sweatshirt. “Why would you do that for me? You don’t even know me.”

“Like I said,” he replied. “I’ve been you. I’ve known that hopelessness.”

A few moments of silence passed before she started sobbing again. “I don’t actually want to die!” She fell forward, burying her head in his shoulder.

“You don’t have to,” he whispered. For nearly 20 minutes, Spencer allowed Y/N to cry into his shoulder. After the crying ceased again, she lifted her head up, looking into Spencer’s eyes with a quiet look of desperation. “Do you want to go home now?” he asked.

She shook her head and started driving back to the supermarket, allowing him to get out of the car. Before he left, she turned to him. “Do you mind following me back to my apartment?”

He nodded silently, giving her an apprehensive smile before walking to his car. Five minutes later, they arrived at her apartment and he walked her upstairs. “Here I am,” she said, pointing to her apartment door.

“Can you give me the pills...and the alcohol?” he asked, wanting to take away the immediate temptation. She reluctantly pulled out the two small bottles of vodka and the acetaminophen and handed them over.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Thank you for caring enough to spend two hours with someone you don’t know.”

“I do know you, at least in a way. Can you text me in the morning? Let me know you’re okay?” he asked. On the way up the stairs he had programmed his number into her phone.

“I will,” she said, turning the key in the lock and giving him a small smile. “And thank you again, Spencer.”

“Good night, Y/N. Sleep well.”

\----

The drive home had been fraught with anxiety, but the second his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep, hoping he had made a difference.

Seven hours later, he woke up with a start, wondering if it had all been a dream. When he turned over and grabbed his phone, he realized it wasn’t. It was a text message from Y/N, from about 15 minutes before. It simply read:

I’m still here.

Quickly, he texted back with an equally simple reply.

I’m glad. I’m here whenever you need me.

He wasn’t normally one to believe in fate, but the past 12 hours felt like so much more than a coincidence.


End file.
